— Shane Carwin enters the heavyweight list at #9 after taking out his first Top 20 opponent in 69 seconds.

— Keith Jardine leaves the light-heavyweight list (temporarily, at least) after his loss to Quinton Jackson on Saturday. He may have beaten a post-peak Chuck Liddell and a pre-peak Forrest Griffin, but it’s unclear if he has what it takes to beat a high-level opponent when they’re at their best.

— Robbie Lawler and Jake Shields drop a spot due to inactivity. Not their fault, but whaddya gonna do. Luckily, their stints in Strikeforce begin soon.

— Josh Koscheck falls to #8 on the welterweight list after being upset by Paulo Thiago. Kos definitely still has the talent of a top-ten fighter — he’s just made some unfortunate choices.

— Jose Aldo ascends to #6 on the featherweight list after his fourth brutal stoppage win in the WEC.

Check ‘em out and let us know if you see things differently.

Unrelated, but important: Thanks so much for all your awesome nominations in our Best MMA Bars forum thread. We’re going to start compiling our list soon, so if you have any others to share, please let us know!

Here’s the latest monthly MMA video summary from FightFace, featuring the greatest hits from UFC Fight Night 17, UFC 95, MFC 20 and more; big ups for the Jeff Buckley soundtrack. Anybody know who was responsible for that insane upkick KO at the 1:25 mark? (Update, from Facey himself: "That was Dustin Kempf from the North American Allied Fight Series, although he ended up winning by RNC.") For more great MMA highlights, check out fightface.blogspot.com.

"I thought I showed them what I was made of, but I guess not. I don’ think I see too many other fighters out there fighting with the same passion and intensity that I bring. I’m a fighter that people want to see fight and maybe one day after I prove myself again I could be back in the UFC.”

Maybe dropping fighters from the UFC is like breaking up. If they’ve only fought twice for you, an email is fine. If they’ve been around a little longer, you gotta call. And if it’s an ex-champion who’s put in years of service, you take them out to a mediocre Mexican restaurant and break the news over appetizers, then let them have just one more go-round in the bathroom for old times’ sake.

Of course, if they’ve only had one fight? Like poor Josh Hendricks? Then you can inform them via a post on their Facebook page. Right before changing your status to “Accepting heavyweight applications.”

(And here’s where things took a turn down Queer Street, which is located dangerously close to TKO Way.)

Josh Koscheck commented on his somewhat controversial upset loss at UFC 95 on his website, and – surprise! – he argues that the ref should have let it go on a little longer. To his credit, however, Koscheck doesn’t lay the blame for the loss at the ref’s doorstep. Instead he puts it squarely on his shoulders, right where it belongs:

As for UFC 95. . . YES, I would have liked to see the ref let the fight go on a little bit more because we are all fighters and we fight until the end. Yes, I got hit hard, but felt as though I could have recovered if I had the chance. As for next time, my message to all the ref’s would be to, please let the fight go until I’m put out to sleep. . . Just so I don’t have the thought of what if, going through my mind and probably the minds of all of you, my fans.

…I could be like a lot of other people and cry about it for weeks and months and make a big deal about it, but it’s now when the true character and discipline of a person is tested.

Then he goes on to quote Martin Luther King Jr. and apply it to his current situation, that of having lost a fight he was supposed to win. Nice.

CagePotato readers Jeb R. and Jamie sent in the above footage of Bob "Boooooooo!" Reilly‘s press conference from Friday, in which the New York Assemblyman compared MMA to prostitution, argued that the sport would actually be economically harmful to the state, and claimed that it would breed more violence in society. All incredibly valid points from a well-informed, not-at-all-senile government official. (Reilly also says that he could fill the Pepsi Arena for a dogfight, which, if that’s true, he might consider leaving the bureaucracy field for the more glamorous and lucrative world of fight promotion.) It’s one thing to read about this joker on our website; it’s quite another to hear these specious non-arguments come out of his mouth. Again, sign our petition if you haven’t yet for some reason, and if you can keep your emotions in check and your arguments high-minded, feel free to get in touch.

Below:Randy Couture‘s son Ryan increased his amateur MMA record to 2-0 on February 15th with this second-round submission victory over fellow lightweight Art Martinez at a Tuff-N-Uff event in Las Vegas; the fight starts at the 3:48 mark. Watch as Couture almost locks in a triangle in the first round, then an armbar, but Martinez manages to survive until the bell. (Damn those two-minute rounds.) It’s all good, though — Couture immediately takes advantage of some bad positioning by Martinez in the second frame, and it’s tap or nap.

Josh Koscheck’s TKO loss has been the subject of a lot of debate on the old internets for the past couple of days. Some people think the stoppage was too fast, not giving Koscheck the chance to recover and defend himself. One of those people, obviously, is Koscheck himself (side note: man, give that camera man credit for going into a tense locker room, hearing that rant, and then having the balls to ask, very simply, “Do you think he should have stopped it?”), but the fact is he’s wrong, and so is everyone arguing his side in this case.

Here’s how you know your fight was stopped early: you can immediately look into the ref’s face as he moves in to stop the bout and say, ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ If you can do that, preferably without slurring or attempting to rise and then falling back down, then you have a legitimate gripe. I like to call this the ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ rule.

If you can’t say ‘What the fuck is your problem?’ (other acceptable variations include: ‘What the fuck are you doing?’, ‘That’s fucking bullshit!’, and ‘Mazzagatti, you asshole!’) immediately after the stoppage, then the ref had reason enough to stop the fight.

By know you may have heard that Dan Hardy is following up on his big knockout victory over Rory Markham at UFC 95 by immediately angling for a fight with Marcus Davis. He’s already taken some shots at Davis’ attempts to brand himself as a U.K. fan favorite, telling Sherdog.com that “The Irish Hand Grenade” is “not English; he’s not Irish. I was born here, and I’ve been bred here. I don’t mind taking on that challenge and showing him this is my home and not his.”

Boom. Immediately this fight has a hook. Not only does Hardy have a point – for all Davis’ attempts to sell us on his Irish heritage, the thick New England accent limits our suspension of disbelief, kilt or no – but he’s also taking a proactive role in his own matchmaking, which is a very smart move for a guy in his situation.

Those of us who watched the Spike TV tape-delayed replay of UFC 95 were treated to a briskly paced broadcast that managed to fit a Spike-record nine fights into three hours. The only match that was left off the U.S. broadcast was the event’s leadoff scrap, a welterweight fight between Paul "Tellys" Kelly and Troy "Rude Boy" Mandaloniz, which Kelly took in a unanimous decision. It’s definitely worth watching; Mandaloniz comes out fast ‘n’ furious, like he’s looking for Knockout of the Night, or Fight of the Night, or both. But Kelly wakes up with about two minutes left in the round and inflicts some abuse of his own — with Wolfslair teammate Quinton Jackson shouting encouragement from cageside — and manages to slash the Hawaiian’s left eyebrow wide open before the round’s end.

The second frame starts off with some ground-and-pound by Kelly. Mandaloniz scores the mount later in the round, and briefly takes Kelly’s back, but Kelly brilliantly reverses and goes back to using Mandaloniz’s head like a punching bag. Rude Boy clearly doesn’t want any more after round two, yet he soldiers on for the final five minutes, which is more of a slower-paced boxing match until the 2:20-remaining mark, when Mandaloniz takes Kelly down. Unfortunately his submission attempts are rebuffed and it’s fist-eating time again. The fight’s actually a little closer than the scores would suggest, but Mandaloniz is the the one who looks like he got too close to a polar bear’s cubs, and there you have it.

Another UFC event is in the books, which means it’s time again to see who’s up and who’s down according to the Potato Index’s arbitrary numerical rankings system. It’s kind of like Bob Reilly’s poll, only we admit it’s total bullshit. And at least this particular brand of bullshit is more fun.

“The Nightmare” proved he can cut almost forty pounds and still go three rounds at a steady pace. That could be bad news for some other lightweight contenders, though it would still be interesting to see how he stacks up against one of the better wrestlers in the division. Sean Sherk’s not too busy, is he?

Another disappointing performance for Stevenson leaves us wondering where he can possibly go from here. He just doesn’t seem to have enough in his toolbox to hang with the top fighters, and secluding himself in Victorville, which is not known for its elite training facilities, certainly isn’t helping.

If you’re going to do only one thing, you’d better do it extremely well, and Maia does. He forces another quality opponent to fight on his terms and puts him away with impressive ease. Is there any middleweight not named Anderson Silva who can pose a significant threat to him at this point?